[Dixielandjazz] Playing For Free.

[tcashwigg at aol.com]

Hi Rob:

The disease has spread to all cities,  and is now up to 4-5 bands per 
club all wanting to be Rock Stars,  it also has spread to the Coffee 
houses who do the same thing called OPEN MICS for singer songwriters 
and solo artists.


Hence the line from club owners "You think you should get paid to play 
music, you must be an IDIOT "

They think they are DOING YOU A FAVOR allowing you to play there and 
get all that Exposure!!


I say lads, it's time for a moratorium on Guitar sales and music 
teachers for about twenty years to allow the playing field to level out 
again :))   See a kid with an instrument take it away and break it :))  
 Teach em to be doctors and lawyers and politicians and such :))

Do your Part  "SAVE A PAID GIG TODAY"   "Blow A Musician Away"  aha  
one down thirty trillion to go :))   anybody developed a musicians flu 
strain yet? :))

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins



    Someone recently told me that this problem is exceptionally bad in 
Nashville. 
 
  When I was in my early 20s, I used to play electric bass in an 
"originals" alternative rock band. Often the bars would bring in 3 
bands a night, charge $5 cover to all the bands' friends that would 
come to see them play, and the 3 bands would split the cover. So, the 
bar makes money off of all the friends of the band drinking all night. 
If it turned out to be a slow night (i.e., your friends didn't show), 
the bar owners would just stop taking a cover and not tell you. They 
also thought they were doing you a favor by letting you play at all 
(because some agent might come in and hear you and you'll be a star). 
Yeah--when was the last time a talent scout went to a dive rock bar in 
Detroit? : ). 
 
 But we all wanted to be rock stars... 
 
 All the best, 
 Rob McCallum